Kissinger's killing fields
theintercept.com
theintercept.com
It's sad this deplorable human being was given the Nobel Peace Prize.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/P860114-1573_MC_b.html#ef...
Esenbel: The Europeans should find ways to meet quick needs; for example, the Air Force needs spare parts. For other items that they can't find in the stocks, maybe you could make a deal with the Dutch or others to send it here.
Macomber: That is illegal.
Kissinger: Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that.
host wikileaks.org
wikileaks.org has address 80.81.248.21
wikileaks.org has address 51.159.197.136
wikileaks.org mail is handled by 10 reykjavik.spp.is.
I got a 502 in Firefox but it worked in Safari.
― Henry Kissinger
It's also clear that that he did tons of illegal/unconstitutional things in his career, so it's pretty clear that he did say it and meant it, because it was an accurate portrayal of his behavior.
"That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it."
If someone thinks peace is lack of violence, how do you even communicate with them when you think peace is the presence of justice. To the former war violates peace, to the latter war is required for peace.
how about just say "justice" or "presence of justice" instead of trying to redefine the word peace? Then, for example, the catch phrase "no justice, no peace" will make sense, it means "if we don't get justice, we will not be peaceful"
In the context of Taiwan, I wouldn't call China's coercion of Taiwan peace even though guns aren't firing.
In the context of Ukraine, I wouldn't call the period after Russia's invasion of Ukraine to seize Crimea "peace" even though it was just "little green men" walking into Crimea.
I wouldn't call the south china sea situation peaceful.
So you're unwittingly making the point I'm making.
I am not redefining any words, the reference in my head points to a different idea altogether. To me, you are redefining peace in the same way to you I am redefining peace. Both of us came into this conversation with the word peace being an indirect reference to a different idea. For me it's an indirect reference to the idea of justice. For you it's an indirect reference to lack of violence.
When I try to answer if a situation is peaceful, I try to estimate the injustice. When you try to determine if a situation is peaceful, you look for the amount of physical violence. That means to me oppression/coercion is violence, but you might be the type of person to justify oppression because to fight oppression means to violate "peace."
The idea of what word references what idea is a social process. So if you want to communicate or achieve understanding, you have to understand what the ideas represented by various words are. That's why so many philosophical conversations start with "well how do you define ____?" "how would we test that definition?".
> "if we don't get justice, we will not be peaceful"
So it leads us to different understandings, because the way I read it, they feel attacked and are saying if there is not justice we will defend ourselves. "no justice, no peace" -> "if there is not justice, there cannot be peace" -> "we will fight for justice".
Your phrasing emphasizes the lack of peacefulness. My phrasing emphasizes the lack of justice.
Why is it a "catch phrase" to you, but a "battle cry" to me? What do those words betray about the ideas that exist in our heads.
What happens if two people in geographically distinct locations learn different definitions for words. What happens if people in Florida learn that the definition of "woke" is "a crazy liberal idea" while the people in California learn that the definition of woke is "understanding systemic racism." The word "woke" literally points to a different idea based on the social context you grew up in. The idea of peace is different if the social context that taught you vocabulary is one of being the oppressor rather than one of being oppressed. To the oppressor, peace is violated when someone doesn't want to be oppressed anymore. To the oppressed, peace is violated when someone used the threat of force in a bid to control them.
I was raised from diapers to be a good Marxist, and what is betrayed to me is that these "battle cries" are yet another packaging of Marxist class struggle agitprop. But I've put that all behind me as symptoms of a personality disorder, and now they just ring false and empty. You are betrayed to me as still inspired by dreams of a class struggle, and winning it. Against the wall, Romanovs! Liquidate the bourgeoisie! Abolish the family, turn in your parents! No justice, no peace!
They should die in custody and disgrace while Snowden and Assange should be free.
There's also the substantial problem that the war crimes (and crimes of aggression) that each is most clearly responsible for are not within ICC jurisdiction for geographical and/or temporal reasons. (Becauae the UK is and was at the time a Rome Statute party, the ICC did have investigate British potential violations in Iraq.)
Some of those possible violations were no doubt awful, but as usual the national leadership layer of the winning sides was untouched. I still have hopes that Tony Blair will one day face the punishment he deserves.
Wouldn't that just result in the US invading the Netherlands to rescue them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
> This authorization led to the act being colloquially nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act", as the act allows the President to order U.S. military action, such as an invasion of The Hague, where the ICC is located, to protect American officials and military personnel from prosecution or rescue them from custody
Me thinks agreements will be broken
Yes, I do believe in transparency and have no love for the DNC, but that asymmetry had significant consequences. It's widely believed that the other dump was used for blackmail purposes.
By whom/who?
> Giving an astonishing inside view of how the White House really works in a crisis, The Blood Telegram is an unprecedented chronicle of a pivotal but little-known chapter of the Cold War. Gary J. Bass shows how Nixon and Kissinger supported Pakistan’s military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election. The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on what was then East Pakistan (today an independent Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending ten million refugees fleeing to India—one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.
> Nixon and Kissinger, unswayed by detailed warnings of genocide from American diplomats witnessing the bloodshed, stood behind Pakistan’s military rulers. Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik but by a bitter personal dislike of India and its leader Indira Gandhi, Nixon and Kissinger actively helped the Pakistani government even as it careened toward a devastating war against India. They silenced American officials who dared to speak up, secretly encouraged China to mass troops on the Indian border, and illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military—an overlooked scandal that presages Watergate.
> Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik
The quote even says realpolitik was a major influence.
- that he generally failed to inform himself on the history of the region and thought in generalities (‘peaceful Bengalis’, etc.) instead of reading reports from the region seriously and in depth;
- that he overestimated the importance of Pakistan as a bridge to China, and consequently (and irrationally) attempted to support Pakistan;
- that he did not seem to understand the nature of the geopolitical position that would emerge after the war, seemed to ignore the Anglophile and pro-US tendencies of the middle class intellectuals underpinning the Bengali nationalist movement and Awami League, ignored the risk of lasting resentment (which hasn’t, in fact happened in the Bangladeshi case but arguably is one reason for lasting Indian Russophilia) consequent on American actions in the crisis; and
- that he seemed to ignore the possibility that the Bengalis might win, and instead doubled down until it really was obvious.
Now, maybe Kissinger overall was still an excellent strategist (although I’d disagree.) But even if he was, Kissinger still had extremely strong preconceptions, which weren’t always obvious to those with whom he interacted. And those preconceptions were quite hard to change. So even if Kissinger was in some ideal sense more rational than others through his strategic understanding, for the purposes of actually interacting with other people, he wasn’t: you’d have to guess what his preconceptions were, and you’d have very great trouble changing them to align with his other objectives.
"...[What are we to make of] President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger who, having been emboldened by various multinational corporations such as IT&T and PEPSICO, pursued another attempt to bring down Allende, an attempt which was operated through the White House and even kept secret from the 40 Committee? According to Kissinger, this plan involved a group that was unknown to others ‘and charged with the responsibility of working with the Chilean military in bringing about a coup against Allende.”? They suc- ceeded."[0]
[0] "Democracy Versus The National Security State", Marcus Raskin, 1976:
https://archive.org/details/democracy-versus-the-national-se...
Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?
A: Because there’s no American embassy there.
Saying it was US anti-leftist meddling is baseless conspiracy theory.
(I'm Peruvian and live in Perú.)
This type of reporting perpetuates war by putting us in a loop of kill, repent and repeat. This is generally the type of reporting I find from this and other billionaire owned outlets. If you disagree, please reference an article where they are not in support of the current war in Ukraine.
Until we can break the profit motive away from war production, you won't see these kinds of wars stopping.
Not to say there aren't other motivations for war, but policy makers, defense companies, and governmental orgs are fairly entwined.
One fun thing I used to find, if you followed an article about Xiajiang, and followed the citations far enough, the source citation was almost always a thinktank funded by these groups in abstract ways. It'd take a while to find again, but one example was a study by some pacific named thinktank, who's funding was from an Australian defense policy group. That group was in turn partially funded by the American DoD.
The corruption is circular. Soft power manipulates studies, which manipulates reporting, which manipulates public opinion, which then sways policy, which then supports the original orgs. It was so easy to turn "predicted cultural genocide(by including a group in a policy they were previously exempt from)" into "active genocide" when you're 8 citations deep.
Is The Intercept billionare-owned?
The Intercept has mostly echoed current left-liberal talking points ever since Greenwald left, so you won't find many articles critical of the current war there. Anyway, since the OP is about Kissinger, it's interesting to note what he had to say about the current war [1]
> "After saying that Western countries should remember Russia’s importance to Europe and not get swept up “in the mood of the moment,” Kissinger also pushed for the West to force Ukraine into accepting negotiations with a “status quo ante,” which means the previous state of affairs.
> “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” said Kissinger, 98, according to the Daily Telegraph. “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/henry-kissin...
And what I say is true. There are multiple imperial instigators in this war. Russia is certainly one of them.
What you said is patently false there is only one imperial instigator in this war, that’s Russia what remains after that is the imagined fever dreams of people trying to justify and support a war of imperialism by Russia that is systematically doing what it can to wipe out the existence of the country it seems to subjugate.
It's a testament to the awesome power of US propaganda that you can't throw a stone in Texas without hitting a house flying the Ukrainian flag, but almost no one actually knows the history and circumstances leading up to the war.
I think these two pieces provide some good background:
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-war-in-ukraine-was-...
The threat to his regime and its legitimacy is to have a democratic neighbor with russian speakers who live better lives, in what is a former colonial subject of the glorious russian empires.
NATO does make a great bogeyman though for internal audiences, to shift attention away from the futures they are deprived of by dictatorship.
As for NATO expanding east, Russia has something of a grievance there but the U.S. and NATO should never have relegated some of the former Soviet states to the status of "buffer regions" in perpetuity in the first place. Those countries have the right to self-determination and security just like anyone else.
Well there was a bit more going on than that (for example, as to why the other members were not present, and how that came to pass).
But either way - the "coup" allegation is bogus, and not taken seriously by anyone in Ukraine.
And one party instigated by allowing victims of imperial subjugation to seek protection against further imperial subjugation by joining a military alliance... or something like that?
These things are all quite different, it is strange to use the same word to describe them.
As silly as that sounds as provocation, its not even true. Directly reacting to Putin's requests, NATO denied Ukraine and Georgia MAPs in 2008, leading almost immediately to Russia invading Georgia, and 6 years later—immediately after Ukraine tossed out a Russia-friendly government for one that sought closer ties with the West but explicitly disclaimed any intention of seeking NATO membership (in large part because NATO caved to Russia in 2008), Russia invaded Ukraine.
It's warped.
The British were after Crimea 180 years ago. (see charge of the light brigade) It's a big prize. And it had been Russian from the 1700s until 1956. And now it is again. Likewise many of the breakaway republics (until 1920s). And what happened to Russia in the 90s. How the borders of Ukraine came to be. What happened in Kosovo. How American "imperialism" works, and what it is.
That is not to excuse any Russian behavior either. They have traditionally been imperialistic and expansionist. Their neighbors have reasonable cause to fear them.
But this is multiple parties instigating civil war, inserting puppet governments, creating propaganda, stirring up hate and taking sides, arming and providing intelligence for their own gain.
It's not at all just "Evil Russia and we are helping democracy!" in reality. This sentiment, (targeted at the historical and event illiterate) is propaganda to get you to play along, pay for it, fight for it or at least not complain. And the same holds true with whatever Russian media is telling it's citizens. I'm sure it has a very good story about evil imperialists and the misdeeds of the CIA, so that's why the rich should get richer and you should put on army fatigues.
It's an economic war. Like most, or even all wars are in reality.
War is a racket. Always has been. The little people pay with blood, the big people stand to turn big profits and maybe if they are lucky the little people enjoy a favored economic position later at the expense of whomever they subjugated.
It's frankly shocking to me that people don't understand this by now.
War may be a racket, but history is what it is and now we're here. There are several morally corrupt parties, but that does not make them equal. That is a fallacy. Civilians suffer, and they suffer tremendously. We mustn't lose sight of right and wrong even when we're deep in moral relativism.
There has been a lot of bloodshed, including of civilians before the "war" started and much of it was from the side that is now aggrieved.
I understand the economic reasons for not wanting Russia to control so many resources and important trade routes, but in this case if there is a "more wrong" party in my opinion it is the meddlers from further off. This is only my opinion and I really think there isn't much of a "morally right" party in this sitution.
Let me also put it like this.
I don't necessarily control what bad people in other places do, but I expect my own society to not behave badly. To not overturn other societies and cause death and suffering and chaos for economic gain and then give me bullshit reasons and propaganda about "truth and justice and democracy". I believe if more people on all sides thought this way we would have less problems but as you say, here we are.
If you mean LNR & DNR, then that's just plainly not true. At most they were majority Russophone (depending on how you count "native language"), which is not at all the same thing.
You might also want to look up what ethnic Russian citizens in e.g. Moldova or Latvia think about the perspective of Russia "helping" them the way it "helped" ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
The citizens of Crimea and Donetsk are largely both ethnically and linguistically Russian. Luhansk it is less, but still around half or more. And they have generally voted largely in favor of Russian leaning candidates. Never mind the declarations of independence after the 2014 coup, the taking up of arms, and the subsequent military resistance to the Ukrainian state.
Crimea is a different story, but if we go there we'll also have to talk about things like why Crimean Tatars aren't the majority of the population there anymore.
The "coup" theory you're referring to is nonsense. Nobody in Ukraine (nor anyone else who understand the actual event chronology, and just how marginal and insignificant the events you're referring to were) puts any stock in it.
To many other cognitive distortions in your post for me to unpack. It's clear that your whole thought process is backwards -- starting from a moralistic position ("Western geopolitical elites bad; those who seem oppose what they want, good"), and building your "understanding" of recent history from that.
Except the USSR released it. Nothing to do with the US. And Russia trying to recapture it now has nothing to do with the fact that it’s been it’s own country for almost 50 years. Not to mention Ukraine has repeatedly sought entrance into NATO for exactly this fear and Russia has dissuaded NATO from considering it under threat of viewing it as a direct aggression against Russia.
> It's an economic war. Like most, or even all wars are in reality.
Whatever else I don’t think the war in Ukraine is an economic one. It seems more like a militarily and politically strategic one. Ukraine (specifically Crimea) is an extremely important naval base (at least that’s my impression). The US has also supported the pro-Western political factions within Ukraine which is a problem for Putin considering Ukraine’s proximity to the Russian border and Crimea. Additionally Putin regularly engages in acts of military aggression because it boosts his strongman image which helps him domestically, which, along with the political assassination, helps maintain his power over the political environment in Russia. Putin is already wealthy enough. His moves are about acquiring geopolitical power, not basic wealth.
No, it is largely a cultural thing. There's considerable evidence that Putin really believes all the tripe about "triune people" that was written in his 2021 essay [0], and genuinely sees independent Ukraine as a deliberately manufactured cultural "anti-Russia" that cannot be allowed to exist for that reason alone.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/turkeys-erdogan-touts-s...
Sure, it’s unclear Erdogan would go so far as to violate NATO treaties, but I wouldn’t call Turkey the US’s unabashed ally.
I don’t know that I buy the whole cultural angle when Putin very reliably acts squarely within the model of realpolitik power acquisition.
If we're going to go back that far -- it was all part of the Crimean Khanate from 1443 up until 1783 (not 1700 as you know perfectly well), whose border extended up to the Dnipro, all around the Azaq deñizi (which later occupiers would call the Sea of Azov) and then some.
So clearly none of the occupying powers since then have any legitimacy.
That is not to excuse any Russian behavior either.
No, you're just trying to minimize it, and use it as a wedge to get some emotional talking points in.
It's too bad that those same people now run Russia, and the war is the direct consequence of that.
This article makes no sense what so ever, and repeats multiple Russian talking points including a often included comment about NATO expansion
That comment and supposed promise never happened in the way it is presented, I’d suspect someone who is familiar with this situation to know that.
That the author of that _opinion_ doesn’t know that is telling of his actual familiarity with the situation.
The entire thing reads like Russian propaganda and reads like it’s trying to dissuade western weapons to Ukraine, a key Russian goal.
Gorbachev himself said that it never happened in that way.
It’s worrying that someone who is meant to be be a ‘expert’ in this are gets such a key fact wrong, what else is wrong in that article?.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-...
The article you cite from the military think tank says clearly that Gorbachev was given assurances. Military think tanks are not generally valid or good sources for such topics.
You are using a secondary source that talks about the primary source to try and discredit the primary source itself.
This doesn’t work and is entirely an underhanded method to try and present non factual information as true.
Once again the fact that Sachs does not know this from a primary source is worrying, what else is he entirely unaware of the reality around the situation?.
That aside, what is important is Russia was under the understanding that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet bloc countries right up to its border and create a security threat which we are seeing now play out. If you find something that Sachs got wrong, I would love to hear it.
None exist, unlike the assurance that Russia would never invade Ukraine.
> Yes there are no signed agreements.
Of course there aren't cause it never happened, and was never promised.
> One interview with the dead Gorbachev is a source, but assurances were given by Western leaders to other people in Russia as well which are documented.
There were never any real agreements, to anyone in any way shape or form that constituted and actual agreement that was meant to be enforced, the leader of the country himself has said that already.
> That aside, what is important is Russia was under the understanding that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet bloc countries right up to its border and create a security threat which we are seeing now play out.
No they weren't their leader literally said he knew that wasn't the guarantee, this is more Putin invented fiction to just his imperialistic war of conquest.
> If you find something that Sachs got wrong, I would love to hear it.
Here's an article that refutes everything he wrote.
> https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1661857051725709314.html
Here's another
> https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2023/03/20/open-letter-to-jeffrey...
By the way, I looked up Jeffery Sachs cause you seem to love him as a source, so I googled him, turns out he's appeared on Russian propaganda shows hosted by Vladimir Solovyov.
Now why would Sachs go on a show that just pure Russian propaganda I wonder?.
If Russia or China built up Mexico or Canada's military with arms and training and they were hostile to us, I think we would be a little concerned.
I read the two blogs which give different perspectives.
I do not see any problem with somebody from the US being interviewed by foreign press or vice versa. That does not make a person immediately sided with the government where that outlet is based or of the interviewer. I wish we would see more of this both ways.
What do you think we should do about Russian nuclear missiles set up in the middle of Europe, in Kaliningrad enclave (1), while its official state media is calling to nuke London (2) and everyone up to Putin himself (3) are making nuclear threats?
(1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/1...
(2) https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/16248569347959480...
(3) https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-threatens-worst-ever-c...
No assurances were written or made in any way, Jeffery Sachs fever dream and Putins imagined grievances don't count as sources.
> I am unaware of assurances Russia made to Ukraine. I am familiar with the Minsk accords which were broken.
I see you’re not at all familiar with this conflict nor with the history of Russian Ukrainian relations then.
In fact considering Jeffery Sachs never mentioned this I’m starting to doubt his familiarly with this conflict and it’s history in general too.
The Budapest Memorandum (which is written down btw) was a international agreement where in exchange for Ukraine giving up there nuclear weapons and long range strike capability, Russia, the UK and The USA pledged to the following points.
>> Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[7]
>> Refrain from the threat or the use of force against the signatory.
>> Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the signatory of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
>> Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
>> Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against the signatory. Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.[8][9]
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
This agreement was signed in 1994, well before any invasion and well before any coerced Minsk accords happened.
So considering Russia has been fragrantly violating this agreement and how much you love to bring up agreements that don’t even exist, you must agree that Russia must leave Ukraine right?, under this agreement which is written down they agreed to never violate their sovereignty something they are doing right now.
> I read the two blogs which give different perspectives.
Those perspectives are called reality, something Jeffery Sachs is clearly not very familiar with.
> I do not see any problem with somebody from the US being interviewed by foreign press or vice versa. That does not make a person immediately sided with the government where that outlet is based or of the interviewer. I wish we would see more of this both ways.
To call Vladimir Solovyov media is incredibly generous let’s look at some choice clips from his show shall we.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTTGsOgxMd4
Talks about and to another Putin supporter about completely wiping out Ukraine from the face of the earth.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnkTLKJt6K0
Here he talks angrily about Ukrainian refugees and about not even stopping at Ukraine, clearly a threat to the rest of Europe.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y0LQqAZHCw
Here he lies about only hitting military targets.
Theres thousands more clips, Solovyov is more akin to Jospeh Goebells than to any actual foreign press.
(1) While there were signed treaty agreements ruling out NATA expansion (beyond Germany) -- notes by Baker (and others) do acknowledge that the Soviets/Russians were left with something of an "understanding" that this wouldn't happen.
For example we have Baker's assurance to Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”
(2) As Gorbachev himself (whom the other commenter in this thread seems intent on reminding us is still "dead", for some reason) put it: “It [NATO expansion] was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990". Along with other statements that it was a bad idea and unnecessarily provocative.
(3) Unfortunately everything changed with the unequivocal violation of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty 2014, which irrevocably upturned both the 1994 Budapest Memorandum -and- whatever sweet nothings were exchanged by Gorby and Baker (now also quite dead) in 1990. And thoroughly legitimized any means Ukraine might seek to protect itself, including joining NATO if it so wishes -- from that point ever onward.
(4) In any case -- the idea that the arc of events in above in any way comes even close to legitimizing, minimizing or excusing the current mass slaughter that is currently being inflicted on the people of Ukraine; or that is places "blame" on the West, or creates some kind of metaphysical equivalence of imperial powers; or that the best course of action for the Ukrainians at this point is to sit back and accept the designs that that large country to the north has on their territory and their future -- is, in the scheme of things, pure and utter horseshit. Something only a self-deluded intellectual can believe.
It's really quite straightforward, actually.
To whom, documented where? Gorbachev's foreign minister Shevardnadze also gave a lengthy interview denying all those claims when the narrative first surfaced. https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-e...
As he points out, NATO membership of Warsaw Pact countries and even then-occupied parts of the USSR (Baltics) was beyond comprehension. There were no such discussions inside the Soviet leadership, within Warsaw Pact, nor with NATO, because they couldn't have imagined that Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself would cease to exist in a very short time.
It's an anachronistic hoax that doesn't fit into the timeline of events.
Its not splitting hairs. International law is not civil contracts, and even in contracts wide classes of important agreements must be in writing with clarity as to essential terms to be binding.
> Yes there are no signed agreements.
Which is really the end of the discussion as to whether there was a durable commitment to the USSR inheritable by any of the USSR’s successor states, individually or collectively. If a signed agreement did exist, we'd have to look at its details to see what its exact scope and temporal parameters and conditions were and whether such heritability made sense, and what commitments the other way were tied to it, and whether it was even logically possible for the putative successor states claiming to inherit the interest to uphold them. But it doesn’t, so we don’t need any further analysis.
Binding, long-term, international agreements heritable by successor states don't come out of private oral assurances that aren’t incorporated into formal international agreements.
Russia trying to conjure such an agreement retroactively after first trying and failing to jump the line and get into NATO ahead of other states in the region is especially brazen, though.
No, its not.
Exactly one party launched an unprovoked war of aggression to seize territory from another sovereign state.
EDIT: After, I should add, successfully convincing NATO not to let them in in the interests of regional stability and avoiding provocation (and did the same thing with Georgia, first.)
Turning around 8 years into the war and blaming NATO for provoking the war based on the relation between NATO and Ukraine that developed after the war started, demonstrating the bad faith of the stability argument, is a particularly brazen propaganda move,
NATO was formed on Russia's borders, it didn’t need to expand to reach them.
And countries near you joining a regional security arrangement isn’t a casus belli, most especially not against completely different countries that you have already succeeded in getting the alliance not to admit, thereby also quelling the country’s interest in joining the alliance.
I know Russian propagandists like to point to the renewed interest in NATO membership Ukraine developed in 2014 for the war, the problem with that is that that interest (aside from not justifying the war in any case) was a direct result of Russia launching the war of aggression.
Russia was a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union and NATO was on the border of Russia, as well as the Soviet Union, when it was formed.
> The US made assurances that NATO would not expand eastward
Informal assurances of current intent given to the Soviet Union around the time of German reunification and never reduced to a treaty or even a formal executive agreement are not binding commitments with unlimited time horizons inheritable by successor states. (And, anyhow, Russia's active pursuit of NATO membership, including under Putin until he got upset that he couldn't bypass the readiness requirements and be directly admitted ahead of others, would have been a clear repudiation of it if it did still have some applicability.)
Norway is a founding member with a land border, and borders don't just happen on land; the US also is territorially adjacent to Russia.
Either way I don't think it matters. The point ultimately is that NATO expansion is not some kind of Western imperialist creep - neighbors of Russia rushed to join NATO as soon as they could because they wanted security based on their own past experience. It was never a threat to Russia.
Holy jeepers, this whole line of discussion you're pushing is ridiculous beyond words.
But point in fact: Norway, which borders you-know-which-country, was one of the founding signatories of NATO at the time of its formation.
Does that make slaughtering up to 100,000 young men, and many civilians who get in the way, justified?
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is in every way just as bad as USA's invasion of Iraq.
Both are horrific crimes, which should see the executives of the Russia, and the USA, hang. If anybody should hang, Bush (and Blair?) up there with Putin.
Unsure what to do with Obama. His use of remote control killing robots should put him up there on the gallows.
Actually I would put the three of them (and Blair) in goal for life - I do not approve of killing for any reason.
Unlike the rulers of the USA and Russia
In other words - your view is that the Ukrainians are incapable of deciding on their own whether to keep fighting their perfectly well-meaning Russian liberators, or not.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/01/michael-flyn...
The Trump team had lots of contact with Russia about all sorts of topics. By the way as far as I know, lobbying the Russians against the interests of the current government is extremely rare and rises to the level of what Reagan did to Carter with the Iran hostage crisis. There’s even laws on the books iirc that this isn’t allowed although no one seems to want to try enforcing it.
Here is Kissinger being asked directly: https://youtu.be/p9vj2IkpBEw?t=7
"Putin and Kissinger, indeed, met regularly – at least fifteen times. Once Putin was even invited for dinner at Kissinger’s home in New York. A “close and trusting collaboration” seemed in particular be established between the Kremlin and Kissinger Associates, Kissinger’s consulting firm." [0]
[0] "The Strange Putin-Kissinger Friendship", Marcel H. Van Herpen, 2016:
https://www.cicerofoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Marcel_H...
Connections with the Russian Oligarchy haven't harmed them at all, especially since all their followers are convinced it was a hoax.
Hillary Clinton also spent decades brown nosing Henry Kissinger. I'm curious to see if she releases a public birthday greeting when he turns 100.
[0] https://www.state.gov/dipnote-u-s-department-of-state-offici...
(I drill my law students in spotting and correcting phrasing that can be interpreted in two different ways, i.e., ambiguities.)
Kissinger is a scapegoat that lets everyone else off. He's another Judith Miller for the liberal soul.
Here's the LA Times calling Kissinger a wimp last year: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-21/richard-nix...
Here's NYT pretending they weren't calling him an idiot and a coward by writing a story quoting only people calling him an idiot and a coward: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/henry-kissin...
edit: also, I hate to add this because it's so 2023, but it's a trope that we blame on the one Jewish guy everything a bunch of WASPs did on his advice.
I mostly see the CCP's concentration camps and sociopathic indifference to fundamental rights as the biggest threat to the world today.
Of course, I can see your point of view too, that the "less evil" regimes are so arrogant in always boasting about how they're "less evil". As if that matters. Everyone knows that if they stopped doing that, the world would improve.
This is a pretty crazy thing to say. I am aware that you can find this opinion in Chinese propaganda but what leads you to believe that this is actually true and the US/China tension is not a function of the fact that the US is an ally to most democracies and opposed to most authoritarian states?
I mean, if we just look at a list of who the US calls "adversaries":
Iran
North Korea
Russia
China
ISIS
Are there any trends we can pick out here? Any commonalities?
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/us-needs-to-work-with-europe...
“America is most effective when we work with our allies,” Raimondo told CNBC’s Kayla Tausche in an exclusive interview. “If we really want to slow down China’s rate of innovation, we need to work with Europe.”
“They’re ripping off our IP, they are not playing by the rules. It’s not a level playing field. And so we need to hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they do that,” she said, adding that Beijing is “not living up to the agreements that they made.”
but it's a trope that we blame on the one Jewish guy everything a bunch of WASPs did on his advice.
White Man's Burden, Ari Shavit, Apr 3, 2003
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skepticalhttps://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/05/17/henry-kissinge...
E.O. 11652 N/A
TAGS: PFOR, XC, US
SUBJECT: AUGUST 8 EA PRESS SUMMARY
INDOCHINA
1. CASUALTY FIGURES FOR WORST BOMBING ACCIDENT OF INDOCHINA WAR AT NEAK LUONG GIVEN BY AMEMBASSY PP AS 137 (INCLUDING 56 FANK) KILLED AND 268 (INCLUDING 137 FANK) WOUNDED, BUT KHMER OFFICIALS SAY 189 KILLED AND 315 WOUNDED. SOURCE OF BOMBING ERROR NOT YET PINPOINTED, BUT DOD BELIEVES DUE MECHANICAL OR HUMAN TECHNICAL ERROR (AP CHITRIB, NYDN, WP; BINDER, NYT; SEIDEN, SUN; CSM; MARKS, UPI, PHINQ). KIRK (CHITRIB) FINDS REACTION AT PP ONE OF RESIGNATION. CHARGE ENDERS APOLOGIZES TO GKR AND EXPRESSES PROFOUND CONDOLENCES FOR NEAK LUONG ERROR (MARKS). SUN (AP) BELIEVES DANGER OF MISTAKEN BOMBING OF FRIENDLY AREAS DUE TO US PILOTS' DEPENDENCE ON CAMBODIAN OBSERVERS FOR TARGET INFORMATION AND DANGER IS HEIGHTENING AS INSURGENTS TIGHTEN NOOSE. PHOTOGRAPHER WHO VISITED NEAK LUONG (AP WP, NYT) SAYS HALF OF TOWN DESTROYED OR HEAVILY DAMAGED AND MAIN STREET LINED WITH RUBBLE; CONTRADICTS US AIR ATTACHE WHO STATED DAMAGE NOT EXTENSIVEAuthor is Nick Turse. I can recommend his 'Kill Anything That Moves' as a good book on the Vietnam War.
https://globalist.yale.edu/in-the-magazine/glimpses/ghosts-o...
> At the time, American scholars Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman argued that media claims of the Cambodian genocide were propaganda, designed to make the US look favorable in the ongoing Vietnam War. Swedish diplomat Gunnar Bergstrom dined with Pol Pot in Phnom Penh while the dictator’s cadres continued their genocide. Global powers like the United States and China promoted pro-Khmer-Rouge resolutions in the United Nations after their removal from Cambodia. Ironically, academics, politicians, and foreigners were key Khmer Rouge targets for extermination.
PDF:
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
> Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s 1977 article, “Distortions at Fourth Hand,” published in the left-leaning publication The Nation, exemplifies the perspective of the left in regards to Cambodia during the 1970s. Although Chomsky and Herman acknowledge that Cambodia was facing a time of extreme suffering, they criticize less ideologically driven publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time for reporting Khmer Rouge crimes for which “there is no independent confirmatory evidence.”12 Citing other liberal publications like The Economist, Chomsky and Herman declare that the evidence suggests, “Executions have numbered at most in the thousands.” They even go so far as to claim, “The ‘slaughter’ by the Khmer Rouge is a...New York Times creation.”
No, I don't think he's equivalent, but let's not give him a pass here. His ideology lead to excusing and lauding a group of people who wanted to slaughter anyone with education and reduce anyone else to starving farmers. And he didn't do himself any favors afterwards either, sulking and attacking people who pointed out that moral failing, even circa 2000's.
We tend to trash people for that sorta thing, like we do for Kissinger, but since it's Marxism/Communism it's given a pass by media/left groups. Their are still a lot of puff articles for Chomsky/and his similars every year. The imbalance in how we talk about that era in certain circles is a bit nauseating.
Anyway, the Intercept is trying to obscure their favored ideologies excesses, and reassign blame to their ideological opponents. That's why the intercept is specifically titling it "killing fields" to usurp the other known quantity of the Khmer Rouge's massacres, and focusing exclusively on Kissinger. I've heard way too many people blame solely Kissinger as responsible, as if pol pot did not exist, to give the intercept the benefit of the doubt.
I gave Chomsky benefit of the doubt several years ago about influence and his position on pol pot, but after more dives on the subject, no, he's unrepentant and petulant. Also you're hero worshipping him by assuming he's one of the "few". He's one of the few you know. And Marxism is heavily intertwined with Communism historically. The distinction is academic only and revolutionaries of the 20th century interchanged them so heavily so as to make it nearly indistinguishable. To ignore it's "implementations" is the "no true Scotsman" at it's finest.
> Conflating Marxism/Communism as one thing
Modern Communism is explicitly Marxist in theoretical line.
Some of it is, much of it isn’t (even some of what claims to be isn’t; despite the Marxist-Leninist branding, Leninism and everything descended from it, including Maoism, starts by rejecting foundational elements of Marxism to derive a short-cut approach in order to bypass capitalist development.)
Even if you mean domestic voices, there weren’t exactly few of them. (He may have been one of the more elitely-positioned voices, but that’s a different story.)